Towers 1-2 at the base.View down the lower portion of the line.Another look back down the line.Side view of the bottom station in the Wildcat base area.The cuts in the side of the terminal are for a gondola door closer. This lift operates as a 4-passenger chairlift in the winter and a 4-passenger gondola in the summer.Doppelmayr Spacejet top terminal with some panels removed.Tower 17.Depression tower #11.Looking up from tower 7.Lower portion of the line.Bottom maze area.View down from tower 21.Breakover towers 23-24 and the top station.Doppelmayr Worldbook entry.
They are way easier to load for non-skiing passengers. Also much more accessible to people in wheelchairs, with strollers or that have problems walking, sitting down and getting up. This means a lift having chairs has to run very slow and stop often unlike a gondola that can run full speed. There are a lot of lifts that operate as chondolas in winter, but only with cabins in summer.
The summer gondola rides may be a casualty of the Vail ownership. They are not advertising them this year, only scenic ‘chairlift’ rides. On the website, the picture shows people riding the triple, although the text say it’s the ‘high speed quad’…..
Wildcat auctioned off 50 or so of the chairs from this lift recently. The chair I bought has its seat bolted to the frame of the chair so the chairs can’t be flipped up at night. I thought this was strange and have never seen a chair with this sort of setup before.
Vails is trying to eliminate the need and ability for seats to flip up. Seats that do still have the ability to flip up are checked daily as part of a seat clip inspection. This is standard at all vail resorts.
Yes, and probably (my guess only) to eliminate the possibility of lift operators flipping them up on their own. Remember Vail had a fatality a few years back because of a seat that was flipped up. This is a way to eliminate at least one uncertainty in that regard.
No one’s really going to notice the difference between the old chairs and the “new” ones. And this is the second lift the old Peru served as a chair donor for, since seven of its chairs and 17 of Montezuma’s chairs were moved to the Outback Express in 2014 to boost that lift’s capacity.
They look like the old ones. Doppelmayr has built the EJ bail with almost no variations (visible to the public, anyway) since ’85 or so. The E was the square-tube variety found on their first-generation detachable lifts, as well as fixed-grips of that vintage. I’ve seen mention of EC carriers before, but if memory serves that was the carrier sold in limited quantities in Quebec and the US Northeast.
Well- I’m sure they are. I learned recently after I was reassigned to a 2011 Uni-G/AG quad that the carriers on that lift and many others of that vintage are listed as EC, when they’re the variant that I and many others called the EJ. Now I’ll have to do some research.
Wildcat doesn’t put the gondola cabins on the line anymore, but they do run the lift (with regular chairs) for scenic operations in the summer. If I had to take a guess, I think the line speed is probably slowed to around 2.5 or 3 mps for ease of use for foot traffic. What’s kinda funny is that even to this day, the terminals still have gondola door opening and closing rails despite not being used for almost 4 years now.
Fond memories of the old Wildcat Skittle gondola. Still some of the best New England skiing up there, but the mountain never quite felt the same to me after that old machine was taken down. Maybe it’s the nostalgia talking…
I may have missed something, but I don’t believe the gondola rides ever did come back.
Here’s what the cabins look, or looked like. Are these CWA cabins? They sort of look like the CWA cabins elsewhere in New England but in a more squared-off style that doesn’t seem familiar to me. Not sure of the provenance.
That’s not the old gondola. That’s the current HSQ, Wildcat Express, which in summer they put on 4 passenger gondola cabins bought second hand from Canada.
Perhaps I worded my post confusingly, I’m aware of that.
re the “new” gondola, I was stating that the gondola-mode hasn’t come back for a few years, and asking where the cabins on it came from, back when they were used.
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Why don’t they run the gondola cabins in the winter?
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With those terminal lengths, they’d have to run the lift at a slower speed.
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Also, this mountain can get some gnarly wind.
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My question is why run cabins in the summer? I like being outside, not in a smelly box.
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I think non-skiers feel a bit more secure in a box (speaking from experience – of non-skiing family members)….
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They are way easier to load for non-skiing passengers. Also much more accessible to people in wheelchairs, with strollers or that have problems walking, sitting down and getting up. This means a lift having chairs has to run very slow and stop often unlike a gondola that can run full speed. There are a lot of lifts that operate as chondolas in winter, but only with cabins in summer.
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The summer gondola rides may be a casualty of the Vail ownership. They are not advertising them this year, only scenic ‘chairlift’ rides. On the website, the picture shows people riding the triple, although the text say it’s the ‘high speed quad’…..
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In a reply to an Instagram comment today, Wildcat did say that they plan to run the summer gondola cabins “in future seasons”…
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Wildcat auctioned off 50 or so of the chairs from this lift recently. The chair I bought has its seat bolted to the frame of the chair so the chairs can’t be flipped up at night. I thought this was strange and have never seen a chair with this sort of setup before.
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Vails is trying to eliminate the need and ability for seats to flip up. Seats that do still have the ability to flip up are checked daily as part of a seat clip inspection. This is standard at all vail resorts.
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Is this due to wind flipping them up when returning downhill? Is that why they are doing that?
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Yes, and probably (my guess only) to eliminate the possibility of lift operators flipping them up on their own. Remember Vail had a fatality a few years back because of a seat that was flipped up. This is a way to eliminate at least one uncertainty in that regard.
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What do the new chairs look like?
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The new chairs came by way of the retired Peru Express at Keystone. Basically the same as the originals.
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No one’s really going to notice the difference between the old chairs and the “new” ones. And this is the second lift the old Peru served as a chair donor for, since seven of its chairs and 17 of Montezuma’s chairs were moved to the Outback Express in 2014 to boost that lift’s capacity.
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They look like the old ones. Doppelmayr has built the EJ bail with almost no variations (visible to the public, anyway) since ’85 or so. The E was the square-tube variety found on their first-generation detachable lifts, as well as fixed-grips of that vintage. I’ve seen mention of EC carriers before, but if memory serves that was the carrier sold in limited quantities in Quebec and the US Northeast.
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I think Mile 1 is the only Doppelmayr detachable outside the Northeast US/Quebec to feature those EC chairs.
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Are the chairs on Cannon’s Cannonball Quad ECs?
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Are the EC carriers in triple or double variants as well?, I know several lifts with them.
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Well- I’m sure they are. I learned recently after I was reassigned to a 2011 Uni-G/AG quad that the carriers on that lift and many others of that vintage are listed as EC, when they’re the variant that I and many others called the EJ. Now I’ll have to do some research.
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What is the summer capacity and speed with the gondola cabins on the line?
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Wildcat doesn’t put the gondola cabins on the line anymore, but they do run the lift (with regular chairs) for scenic operations in the summer. If I had to take a guess, I think the line speed is probably slowed to around 2.5 or 3 mps for ease of use for foot traffic. What’s kinda funny is that even to this day, the terminals still have gondola door opening and closing rails despite not being used for almost 4 years now.
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Thanks. Do they still have the cabins?
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Yes, I noticed them through the window in the old gondola base building when I was there last month.
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Wow. I’ve got to get up there!!
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Were they some Carlevaro & Savio “Noon Balloon” cabins or Wildcat Express’s cabins from Banff?
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Vail = cheap.
Vail has ruined Wildcat. Vail has ruined their NH resorts.
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Fond memories of the old Wildcat Skittle gondola. Still some of the best New England skiing up there, but the mountain never quite felt the same to me after that old machine was taken down. Maybe it’s the nostalgia talking…
I may have missed something, but I don’t believe the gondola rides ever did come back.
Here’s what the cabins look, or looked like. Are these CWA cabins? They sort of look like the CWA cabins elsewhere in New England but in a more squared-off style that doesn’t seem familiar to me. Not sure of the provenance.
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That’s not the old gondola. That’s the current HSQ, Wildcat Express, which in summer they put on 4 passenger gondola cabins bought second hand from Canada.
This is the original gondola: https://www.newenglandskihistory.com/lifts/viewlift.php?id=57
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Perhaps I worded my post confusingly, I’m aware of that.
re the “new” gondola, I was stating that the gondola-mode hasn’t come back for a few years, and asking where the cabins on it came from, back when they were used.
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The gondola cabins came from the Sulphur Mountain gondola in Banff, Canada.
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Gondola cabins on the line:
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Wildcat announced today that they are putting the gondola cabins up for auction….
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“Cut, cut, cut”
That’s Vail’s NH ops plan.
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